


chasing summer

by robotsdontcry



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22202524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotsdontcry/pseuds/robotsdontcry
Summary: On Tuesdays, Dimitri and Ingrid have basketball and band practice respectively, so the walk home from school is quieter than usual. But not by much, because Sylvain won’t stop trying to make conversation.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 3
Kudos: 90





	chasing summer

On Tuesdays, Dimitri and Ingrid have basketball and band practice respectively, so the walk home from school is quieter than usual. But not by much, because Sylvain won’t stop trying to make conversation.

Right now he’s going on and on about the school play while Felix barely pays attention, focusing instead on avoiding the giant puddles in the path. Arms resting behind his head, Sylvain dodges them as easily and effortlessly as he does everything in life.

“Felix! Are you even listening?”

“No,” Felix says. Sylvain elbows him, pushing him into a puddle. “What the fuck!”

It’s December in the Pacific Northwest, which means the sun sets at four o’clock but it’s not yet cold enough to snow. It just rains instead, drenching them on their way to and from school whenever they forget to bring an umbrella. The shortcut home they discovered years ago winds through a patch of woods and along a small creek before turning back onto residential streets. Today, the trails are all muddy.

The red-haired menace beside him, ever the source of frustration, has the nerve to laugh while water sloshes around in Felix’s shoes with every step. He should’ve worn boots, but then again the sky was clear this morning. Stupid Seattle weather. 

They follow the trail deeper into the trees. From somewhere to their right comes the quiet gurgle of the creek. 

“Anyway,” Sylvain continues. He's always trying to fill the empty air with words, a habit that Felix will never understand. Why talk when you can just glare at people instead. “You know Dorothea Arnault? Long brown hair, sings in the choir?”

Felix, who never bothers to learn names, tries to remember. “She’s friends with Ingrid, right?”

“Yeah, they get along so well it’s scary.” Sylvain shivers.

“Well, what about her.”

“I asked her out after rehearsals yesterday. We’re literally playing Romeo and Juliet, how could she say no?” Knowing Sylvain, Felix thinks, he probably dropped a line from Shakespeare too. “But she legit looked like she was about to slap me.”

To Felix, the idea of Sylvain Gautier—top student, theatre nerd, star athlete—not being loved by the entire female population is oddly satisfying. He kicks at a rock, sending it bouncing down the gravel path, and says nothing.

“Then when Ingrid found out today, she actually slapped me. That woman has no restraint, I’m telling you.”

“You deserved it.”

“Ouch. Remind me why I’m friends with you guys again,” Sylvain says, only half-joking.

“Beats me.” Felix shrugs. “If you’re looking for sympathy, you’re talking to the wrong person.”

Of the three people at Garreg Mach High School who have had to tolerate Sylvain the longest, Ingrid still thinks it’s her duty to make him change his behavior. Dimitri spends more time talking to ghosts than real people, so he couldn’t be bothered to deal with his childhood friend-turned-skirt-chaser. Felix has long since convinced himself he doesn’t care.

Sylvain huffs a laugh, his breath clouding up in the bitter air. It comes out hollow. “Yeah, don’t worry. I know that.”

The rain has stopped. Some of the clouds have cleared to make way for the sun, a round pale thing in the sky. The winter landscape is bleak and lifeless, a mixture of evergreens and barren trees populating the forest. Felix’s hands are starting to go numb from the cold. He’s shoving them into his pockets when his phone buzzes. It’s Dimitri: _Where are you?_

So what if Felix is skipping practice again. He already trains more in his free time than the rest of the team combined and besides, he’s been dribbling a basketball since he was three. He texts back, _I’m not going._

Dimitri’s reply is immediate. _Are you okay?_

Felix ignores the text and stuffs his phone in his pocket. He doesn’t want Dimitri’s concern, kindness, any of it. Sometimes Felix thinks he could move to a small town in the middle of Washington state, live by himself in the semi-wilderness and never have to talk to anyone he knows ever again. He wonders what keeps the four of them together, people who think you’re best friends just because you were stuck with each other growing up. 

“Hey, earth to Felix.” 

“What?”

Sylvain is looking at him. “Didn’t you hear what I said? Wanna come over?”

“Can’t,” Felix shrugs. He never gets anything done at Sylvain’s, and he actually has things to do. “I have a history test tomorrow.” 

“C’mon, you’ll be fine.” Sylvain slings an arm around his shoulder, his scarf falling into Felix’s face. Too close. When Felix shoves him away, he just laughs. Sylvain’s always wearing cologne to impress the girls, but today it smells even stronger than usual. Felix wonders if he does it just to mess with him.

“Easy for you to say,” he mutters, shoulder burning where Sylvain touched him. 

“I can help you study,” Sylvain offers. 

“No thanks,” is Felix’s automatic answer.

“What? Why not?”

When it comes to school, Felix almost envies Sylvain’s easy confidence. Sylvain doesn’t usually study any more than he does, but the difference is that Felix barely manages to pass his classes while Sylvain gets perfect grades. He’s smart even though he pretends to be anything but. It’s why everyone in school either loves him, hates him, or wants to be him. Or all three, of which Annette Dominic is the primary example.

As they enter the neighborhood, Felix checks his phone. It’s only three-thirty. Rodrigue doesn’t usually get off work until seven, but the house still feels suffocating even in his absence. “You sure you don’t have better things to do?”

He thinks he sees Sylvain’s face do something funny. Then it’s gone, and Sylvain nudges his arm. 

“I mean it, Felix,” he says. “What kind of friend do you think I am?”

They’re standing in front of their houses. Felix rolls his eyes, thinking first of his empty house, then of Sylvain’s familiar room. Gautieron’s soft black fur. Who the hell names a cat after yourself. 

“I’ll be over in five,” he decides.

Behind the garden, there’s a hole in the fence separating Felix and Sylvain’s backyards. Over the years, it wasn’t unusual for one of them to barge unannounced into the other’s house through the back door. Once, Sylvain climbed the tree in his backyard, knocked on his window at midnight and asked to sleep over because Miklan locked him out of the house. 

After Felix retrieves his laptop from his room, he finds the gap in the fence and squeezes his way through. It’s smaller than he remembers. Sylvain’s waiting for him on the other side. 

“I can’t believe you can still fit through there,” he says, eyebrows raised.

“Shut up,” Felix says.

“Hey, don’t step on the flowers!”

“What flowers?” Felix huffs. “It’s December.”

“Here.” Sylvain points to a patch of winter pansies growing along the fence, bright splashes of purple and white against the dead landscape. Unbidden, something aches bright and golden in his chest when he follows Sylvain’s gaze.

When they were younger, Dimitri and Ingrid used to come over and the four of them, plus Glenn and Miklan, would play soccer in Sylvain’s backyard. Felix always insisted on being on a team with Dimitri and Glenn, and they’d win nine times out of ten. Whenever they won, Glenn ruffled his hair, Dimitri swept him into an exuberant hug. Then the Gautiers would come out and yell at them for trampling over the flowers.

That was a long time ago. Now Miklan’s a monster, for lack of better words, Dimitri sees a therapist twice a week, and Glenn is dead. It’s been a year since he went on a camping trip with Dimitri’s family and only Dimitri came back. It rained at the funeral. Then Rodrigue became intolerable and Felix lost his father too. 

He shakes his head, burying the memory in the frozen soil under his feet.

They climb the stairs to Sylvain’s room. Felix scratches Gautieron behind the ears—she’s just as desperate for attention as her owner—and takes over the desk while Sylvain leaves to ransack the kitchen. His room has barely changed from when they were kids, except the ever-expanding assortment of books. Novels and plays and poetry collections lining the shelves; clothes piled up in the walk-in closet; a bunch of red roses in a glass vase on the windowsill.

He suddenly itches for a basketball, soccer ball, anything. Guess he’ll have to settle for mashing buttons instead. While Sylvain is downstairs, Felix looks through the pile of video games on the floor. He holds one up when Sylvain comes back with an unopened box of chocolates, probably from some girl. “Let’s play Smash.”

“I thought you had a—” Sylvain stops, grins. “Sure.” 

Gautieron pads back and forth under the TV meowing at them. They ignore her and sit on the bed and go through the box of chocolates even though Felix normally hates sweets. By the time he’s finished beating Sylvain’s ass with Marth, it’s already dark out. Someone’s phone is ringing.

“Aren’t you gonna answer it?”

“Huh?”

“Your phone’s ringing.” Sylvain raises his eyebrows. The noises are coming from Felix’s backpack. “Rodrigue again?” 

“Yeah.” Felix rolls his eyes. “I’m not picking up. He can take a hint.” He lets the thing ring itself to death before he crawls over to his backpack and digs out his phone. One missed call from Rodrigue, three from Dimitri. Great. Tomorrow, Dimitri will approach him before math class and ask _are you mad at me_ and Felix will snap _I don’t want to talk to you_ and Dimitri will say _okay_ and walk away looking like a kicked puppy. Then Felix will feel a lot of things, and maybe a little guilty.

“Stupid,” Felix mutters.

“Who? Rodrigue?” Sylvain asks. 

He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “No. I mean, yeah.” Felix rubs at his face, frustrated. “Him too.”

Sylvain doesn’t ask, just stares at him with those stupid eyes that can see everything Felix has ever tried to hide. It’s times like these when Felix is convinced he hates Sylvain too, but there’s nobody to blame for that but himself. He was too vulnerable with his feelings as a kid, and Sylvain’s just gotten more perceptive over the years. Now comes the ache again, sudden and sharp between his ribs. 

Felix glares at his phone. Finally he asks, still careful to avoid eye contact, “Can I sleep over?”

“Huh?” Sylvain looks surprised. “Oh, yeah. Why didn’t you ask earlier?”

When Felix turns around, Sylvain has disappeared off to who knows where. He sits at the desk and flips open his textbook, but the dates and names keep blurring together on the page. History was never his best subject; he only ever cared for the battles.

There’s a photo on Sylvain’s desk. Him, Sylvain, Dimitri and Ingrid in the winter of fourth grade. The sidewalks are covered in white except in places where tiny footsteps made trails in the snow. They’re sitting in a sled in front of Dimitri’s house: Dimitri in front, then Felix, then Ingrid. Sylvain is at the back with his unmistakable red hair, pushing the three of them through the snow.

There are times when he wonders if he really knows Sylvain at all. Sylvain always gives him shit for avoiding his problems with what he calls inhuman amounts of physical activity, but Felix isn’t the only one who keeps running away. Sylvain comes to school with a black eye and says it’s because he got into a fight with his cat; Felix remains unconvinced. He crashes his dad’s car on purpose, dates a new girl every week. But in the end—

The door bangs open while Felix is play-fighting with Gautieron instead of reading his textbook. When Felix turns around, the cat scratches him. He has to stop himself from growling back at her. He looks up to see Sylvain carrying an air mattress and a pile of blankets taller than his head. 

“What are you doing,” Felix says.

“Aren’t you sleeping over?” 

Felix glares. “You’re so—”

“What?” Sylvain says innocently. He sets down the blankets and starts to inflate the air mattress. Felix watches him through narrowed eyes, unsure whether to feel annoyed, exasperated, or something else entirely.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“You’re welcome,” Sylvain replies, never missing a beat.

**Author's Note:**

> couldn't get them out of my head. thanks for reading!


End file.
